The present invention relates generally to clothing tags and more particularly to a novel clothing tag and method or use.
The practice of attaching tags to articles of clothing and the like by means or plastic fasteners of the type comprising an elongated plastic member having a cross-bar at one end, a paddle at the opposite end, and a filament interconnecting the cross-bar and the paddle is well known. Such tags typically comprise a generally-rectangular sheet of tagstock or tagboard provided with a hole, the tag typically being attached to the article of clothing by inserting the cross-bar end of the plastic fastener first through the hole in the tag and then through the article of clothing using a device commonly referred to as a tagger gun. With the cross-bar end of the fastener thus attached to the article, the paddle end of the fastener serves to keep the tag from being pulled off the filament portion of the fastener. Information relating to the name of the manufacturer, the name of the retailer, the piece of the article, or the like is typically printed on the tag.
One problem that has arisen with the use of such tags, particularly in connection with the sale of articles of clothing, is that certain unscrupulous consumers have made a practice of purchasing an expensive or unusual article of clothing, removing those tags attached to the garment (the tags often being conspicuously placed on the article), wearing the article of clothing once or twice, and then returning the article of clothing to tile retailer for a refund. Because of the administrative difficulties associated with determining which consumers have legitimate reasons for returning their articles of clothing and which consumers are looking for refunds for worn articles of clothing, many retailers are effectively forced to issue refunds to all those who request such. As can readily be appreciated, this can result in considerable losses for the retailer as many of the worn and returned articles of clothing are no longer in new condition and cannot be re-sold for their original prices.
One approach that has been taken by some retailers to discourage consumers from wearing and then returning articles of clothing as described above has been to attach an additional tag to the article of clothing in the same manner as described above, the tag containing a warning to the consumer that removal thereof precludes the possibility of a refund for the article. Such tags are typically placed on the article of clothing in a conspicuous location so that the consumer will not want to wear the article without removing the tag. This approach, however, has not been entirely satisfactory since some consumers have discovered how to remove the fastener attaching the tag to the article of clothing in such a way as to enable the fastener and tag to be manually re-attached to article of clothing by the consumer at a later date without clearly evidencing signs of removal and re-attachment. Typically, such removal of the fastener from the article is accomplished by positioning the cross-bar so that it is parallel to the filament (i.e., by pulling on the cross-bar to create some slack in the filament and then bending the end of the filament adjacent to the cross-bar so that the cross-bar is aligned with the remainder of the filament) and then by pushing the cross-bar and the filament back through the same opening in the article of clothing through which they were originally inserted. Re-attachment of the fastener and tag to the article of clothing may then be accomplished as described above by re-inserting the cross-bar end of the fastener through the article of clothing.
Accordingly, it would clearly be desirable to have a tag which could be attached to an article of clothing or the like by means of a plastic fastener in such a way as to make removal of the tag from the article of clothing and re-attachment of the tag to the article of clothing difficult to accomplish without providing some evidence of tampering.